Section I
In this section of my final paper in HLSC 3127 I will be reflecting on the movie
“What Dreams May Come” and the elucidations this movie makes to the book we read in
class “The Burden of Proof” by Deepak Chopra. I will be following the movie
chronologically and describing the important ideas that are expressed in the movie as well as
in the book by Chopra as well as providing my opinion on the topic.
When Chris dies and is floating through his house he says “Dreams don’t deal in time
doc, time doesn’t count”. This reminded me of how in Chopra’s book he says “Death
accomplishes miraculous things....It replaces time with timelessness” (Page 25 paragraph 4).
There is nothing in the world that does not respect the laws of time, such as change over time
and physical impossibilities of time, except death and dreams.
This means that death and
dreams are very similar and it is very interesting to me how death and dreams could be so
related. In my opinion this may also be why near death experiences (NDEs) seem so real to
the people that have them. If an individual is in a hospital and is on the verge of death, and
has a dream that is related to death and moving on to another world it may seem to them like
a near death experience and that for a short while they were in another world, however when
they wake up they do not perceive this dream as an NDE. If this dream coincides with what
doctors perceive as death it may be viewed as a near death experience. An example is when
you go to bed at night dying is not on your mind therefore you do not dream about being in
another world and in the afterlife and if you do you do not consider it a NDE. For hospital
patients the situation is different and they may have dreams of death and moving on and
when they wake up they are told that they almost died and these patients might associate the
dream they were having with a near death experience. It would be interesting to see how
many people would say they had a near death experience if they were not told by doctors that
they almost died but then came back to life.
Perhaps they would not associate the dreams
they had while in this state as near death experiences instead it would just be viewed as
another normal dream.
Another thing this quote in the movie reminds me of in Chopra’s book is when he
says “Your whole body does the same, putting itself into the grave and rising from the dead
thousands of times a minute as old matter is exchanged for new” (Page 48 Paragraph 5).
Much of our time spent sleeping is devoted to our bodies regenerating themselves, killing old
cells and replacing them with new ones and only when we are asleep can we have dreams.
Therefore in a sense dreams are the equivalent to dying. In Chopra’s book during the story of
Savitri Ramana says “every former self you have left behind is a ghost” (Page 82 paragraph
7). Notice how in dreams it is rare for you to have a new idea or for a person around you to
say something new that you haven’t heard before. This may be because in your dreams you
are a ghost of yourself and are interacting with ghosts of others.
“I’m the one you don’t want to see, you don’t want to be dead” This is a perfect
example of how Western society views death, they see it as a negative and try to avoid it at
all costs. Chopra says in his book many times that we are afraid of death because death is the
enemy. With this view it becomes more difficult for people in the Western world to accept
death and embrace it as a natural and miraculous part of life.
“At least you are willing to see yourself. You’re losing your fear.” “Fear?” “Fear that
you disappeared. You didn’t. You were only tied” This conversation between Chris and the
doc occurs at Chris’ funeral. It emphasizes the huge fear many people have with death as
described in Chopra’s book that you disappear. Once one realizes that you are not a physical
body you are just in one this fear is resolved. Your soul is the true reflection of yourself and
when you die you lose your physical body but you have not disappeared. Many people
perceive themselves as their physical self and they view death as the degradation and
disappearance of this physical body and therefore the disappearance of themselves. This may
be why so many people even now wish to have their bodies buried instead of cremated.
Perhaps we feel like by conserving our physical bodies we will never disappear. However in
Chopra’s book he say many times that our physical bodies are a simply a “vessel for the soul”
in the physical world and when people come to this realization that the part of them that is
them continues to exist once the physical body has died they will be able to see themselves in
the afterlife. People who die and believe that they are their physical bodies or their brains will
not see themselves because they think that there physical body has disappeared and therefore
they disappeared as well. Once you can view yourself in the afterlife you have accepted the
fact that you are your soul and your soul continues on in the afterlife and does not disappear.
In the scene at the graveyard when Chris tells his wife he is not going anywhere and
she screams so he leaves her. This is what Chopra describes when he says “As long as you
continue to feel like the person you were you can’t experience the unknown.” Chris was stuck
as the person he was when he was living in his physical body on earth. He continued to love
his wife and try to get her to notice him. Once Chris decided to leave his wife and therefore
leave his old self behind he was able to experience the unknown. You are stuck in the ghost
of the person you were and your soul is unable to move on to the next life. Maybe we are just
ghosts of the people we were in the afterlife and when we change, our personalities, beliefs
etc. in the afterlife these ghosts come into the physical world and change our physical selves
as well. This would explain déjà vu and seeing into the future because what has happened to
your soul in the afterlife happens to your soul again later in the physical world. When we are
sleeping perhaps our soul enters into the afterlife and dreams are the adventures of the soul
while it is there, and when we wake up our soul is taken back to the physical world. This
may also explain why it is so difficult to draw the line between reality and dreams and why
dreams seem so real, because they are.
In dreams you never die, I feel like it is impossible for dreams to just be imagination
because there is an extremely low chance that throughout your dreams your imagination does
not imagine you dying. This further supports my theory that dreams may be the adventures of
the soul in the afterlife and the reason we never die in our dreams is because our soul never
dies.
The conversation Chris has with Albert in his heaven on the water when Albert asks
Chris “What is the me?” and Chris responds “My brain I suppose.” This conversation is
similar to the idea Chopra portrays throughout his book that we are not our physical selves
instead we are our souls. This is further portrayed in the movie when Albert says “You are in
your house but it doesn’t mean you are your house.” Chopra has a similar idea in ‘The
Burden of Proof’ when he discusses Jesus telling his disciples to be “in the world but not of
it” which simply means to be in the physical world but not to be the physical creatures they
are in this world.
Albert also says “If you are aware you exist then you do.” This relates to what
Ramana says in Chopra’s book “we can’t remember not being alive because we always have
been.... Everyone remembers being nobody remembers nonbeing” Perhaps we do not
remember nonbeing because as we do not believe we exist and therefore we don’t and the
same is true for the reason we remember being. The soul only exists if we believe it does and
because the soul is what is left of “you” in the afterlife the afterlife is only possible if we
believe the soul exists. Albert also says something interesting about seeing ourselves in a
physical body in heaven he says “You see what you want to see” just as earlier in the movie
he says “We are all insecure at first so we see ourselves somewhere safe “ about Chris
moving on to his heaven. This may be the same reason we see ourselves in the physical body
when we are in the afterlife because this is what we are used to. This suggests that in the
afterlife once we are comfortable we no longer see ourselves in a physical body and instead
see ourselves as who we really are, our souls.
Albert says “thought is real, physical is the illusion” this is similar to what Chopra
means when he says that “consciousness is convinced by its own creations. Therefore nothing
we can see, hear and touch whether in waking, dreaming, or beyond both is ultimately real.
They represent shifting perspectives.” In the physical world consciousness thinks the 5 senses
are real and the physical world becomes reality because the consciousness creates it. For
example for those people that have mental disorders and think that the government is out to
get them and their phones are being tapped and calls monitored this is their reality because
their consciousness creates it. In the afterlife physical is the illusion because consciousness is
more free and can create the thoughts it has and therefore thought becomes reality.
Albert says something really interesting to me when he says “God is up there shouting
down that he loves us, wondering why we can’t hear him” this intrigues me because when
Chris dies he shouts at Annie and wonders why she can’t hear him and so is in a similar
position as God. Perhaps this means that God is in another life that souls cannot reach just as
souls are in another life that the physical world cannot reach.
When Chris sees Annie in the distance as he is going towards the red tree and when
he got there he couldn’t touch her and she was no longer there this reminded me of when
Savitri saw the ghost of her as a young child and Ramana told her not to try to hold the child
or go over and try to interact with it. Maybe in the afterlife the ghosts of people still alive in
the physical world have the same boundaries that the ghosts here have. By this I mean the
ghosts in the afterlife are people in the physical world who have not died yet, and because of
this those in the afterlife cannot interact with them. It is the same in the physical world in that
the ghosts we see in the physical world are really people in the afterlife and we therefore
cannot talk to them or touch them we can only feel them. Perhaps we can only interact with
people who are in the same world we are but we can always feel the presence of people in
other worlds such as the afterlife because the soul is tied to the afterlife but the body is only
tied to the world we are currently in.
I found it interesting that at the beginning of the movie when Chris is still alive it
shows them eating however the entire time Chris is in the afterlife it never showed them
eating only drinking coffee. This I think is because the soul does not need food to survive it
only needs qualities that as Chopra says “become more intense ase we get closer to the
soul”(page 65 paragraph 4). When we become blissful or stronger the soul becomes
nourished and we are able to access it and become one with the soul. Bliss interacting with
the soul may also cause a positive feedback loop in which when the soul is nourished by bliss
it then intensifies the feeling more and more allowing the soul to become more and more
nourished and accessible. Maybe this is why throughout the beginning of Chris’ journey in
the afterlife he consistently sees Annie. Annie is the only thing that makes him blissful and
therefore when he sees her in the afterlife his soul is fed. As he progresses into the afterlife
he no longer sees visions of Annie and instead sees visions of his children. Albert says
“When you do you will” when Chris says he wants to see his children and when his soul gets
nourished by this small moment of bliss when Chris is thinking about his children the soul
wants more. Once this happens he begins to see his children but at first he cannot see his
children as they are and does not recognize them as his children. Instead he sees them as they
want to be seen. Chris at first only has memories of his children that were from his wife but
once Chris begins to think of his own memories of Marie and realizes he is in Marie’s heaven
he is able to see Leona as Marie. As the soul becomes more and more blissful through
visions and thoughts of Marie Chris begins to let go of the feeling that only Annie will make
him happy in the afterlife and his soul becomes strengthened it allows him to recognize his
children in their new bodies because they are now providing his soul with bliss and
nourishing it. A similar situation occurs when Chris begins to think of his son and the
memories he has of him. Once he thinks of those memories and becomes blissful thinking of
these memories he is able to see that Albert is in fact his son. In the afterlife the soul sees
what makes us blissful and when we what realize what makes us truly blissful we will be able
to see what we want in the afterlife.
It was interesting to me when Chris recognizes Tigger, Marie’s stuffed animal, on the
river bank he says that Annie tore it up once. Perhaps this means that everything that has died
or been destroyed goes into the afterlife. All the molecules that have created everything in the
physical world and have been destroyed even though they are lifeless and soulless enter into
the afterlife. Maybe this is what the afterlife is made of, all the particles that are no longer in
the physical world.
When Chris goes to the city with Leona I didn’t realize it until after I watched the
movie a second time, this is Marie’s heaven and is the same as the sculpture in Marie’s room
in the physical world. Chopra says in his book “Everything we experience in the Bardos
(afterlife) is a reflection of our own mental machinations.” Marie experiences heaven as the
sculpture in her room because she thinks that this is where we go when we die. This created a
machination in Marie’s mind that this is what heaven would be, therefore in the afterlife this
is what heaven looked like just as Christians see Christian images when they experience an
NDE.
When they are in hell the Professor says “In hell the danger is losing your mind.” This
is because other people’s thoughts and memories are getting in the way of our own and
instead of seeing what makes our souls blissful we see what others souls need to be blissful.
This does not nourish our soul and so we do not see what makes us blissful and therefore it
feels like we are in hell because we are starting to disconnect with our own soul. Since our
heavens are created by blissfulness of the soul and therefore the things and people that make
us happy when we see what makes others happy we are no longer in heaven and therefore are
in hell. Annie does not see anything that makes her soul blissful only memories and
projections that harm the soul. When Chris almost loses his mind it is because he is seeing
Annie’s thoughts and memories and this causes his soul to become less blissful, once the soul
loses its bliss this is when one loses their mind and enters “hell”.
Albert also says “Suicides cannot face the reality of what they have done; they can’t
realize they are dead.” Chopra says in his book “Hell ultimately reflects the state of our own
awareness, freedom from hell is won, like every other achievement, by coming closer to the
reality of the soul.” In my opinion suicides feel like if they kill themselves the pain of life
will go away, however they do not realize that it is not their body or their mind that is causing
this pain it is the soul. When these people kill themselves their souls are not taken away from
the pain and they therefore end up in the same place in the afterlife as they were in, in the
physical world. Annie thinks that by killing herself she will be relieved of the pain that the
death of her 2 kids and her husband has caused her in the physical world because the physical
world is causing this pain. She is trying to escape from the pain by killing her physical body,
when in actuality there is no way to run from the pain because it is in her soul and you cannot
kill your soul. When suicides reach the afterlife they are confronted with the same suffering
and misery they had in the physical world and this causes them great confusion. Most of us
see the afterlife as a happy place where we get to see our relatives and our dreams come true
and when suicides are confronted with the fact that the afterlife for them is pretty much the
same as life was in the physical world this confuses them and they feel as though they must
not have died.
“Suicides are different” When I first heard Albert say this my reaction was the same
as Chris’ I thought it was similar to the thoughts that Christians have that people who have
committed a suicide have committed a sin and I was kind of angered by this. Now I realize
that the reason Albert said this is not because God put the people that commit suicide in hell
instead the people that commit suicide put themselves in hell because of the projections they
put on themselves as suicide victims and the projections society puts on suicide victims.
Albert also says “Each of us has an instinct that there is a natural order in to our journey and
Annie’s violated that” This instinct that everyone has in my mind is a projection. Chopra goes
into explaining projections and their role in the afterlife for a large portion of a chapter in his
book and it helped me to understand the movie and the true reason Annie was in hell. Albert
also says “everybody’s hell is different, the real hell is your life gone wrong.” Each person
has a different idea of what their “life gone wrong is” some people may see it as being poor
others may see it as being selfish etc. Chopra expresses a similar sentiment in his book in the
fact that hell is different for everyone and you can put yourself in hell but you can also take
yourself out.
When Annie enters hell this is because of projections. This goes back to what Albert
meant when he said “Suicides do not realize what they have done they can’t realize they are
dead.” Chopra says “Projection is “successful” when we no longer see reality but have
created a false region based on fear, hostility, anxiety, or insecurity- any negative emotion for
which we refuse to take responsibility for” (page 159, paragraph3). Annie is projecting the
negative emotions that society has placed in her mind about committing suicide, that it is
wrong or they are a failure. This causes her to punish herself in the afterlife as the professor
tells Chris in the movie. Projections create a reality and in Annie’s reality she must be
punished for committing suicide in the afterlife because she believes it is unnatural and like
she gave up on life. Annie even says in her journal before we learn she killed herself in the
movie “it’s over” referring to her life. This causes her to believe that her life will be over in
the afterlife and so it is and she is left with the same reality she had in the physical world
before she committed suicide because if she is still alive she must be in the physical world
because as she said “When we die we disappear”.
Chopra explains that there are requirements for projections to be successful and Annie
has all of these requirements met in her consciousness about suicide victims. Suicide
symbolizes failure and giving up. It fulfills ones desire to be released from the pain of the
physical world. In fantasy when they die they will be placed in hell where they will live for
eternity. It fits the myth that suicide is unnatural and those that commit suicide will be in hell
in the afterlife. We idealize those who commit suicide as crazy, depressed and weak. Without
this projection we as well would not see people who commit suicide in this way and Annie
and those who commit suicide would not see themselves in this way either. This projection is
carried on in the afterlife and this is why Annie and other suicide victims go to hell.
Annie does not recognize Chris when he finds her because she does not realize she is
dead and so cannot believe that it is Chris. This is the reason that suicides are so difficult to
“bring back” into heaven in the afterlife. If Chris would have told Annie that she is really
dead she wouldn’t have believed him and this would have confused and angered her. This
may have also been one of the reasons she wanted Chris to go so soon after he started talking
to her and gets so upset when Chris says “It’s me”. Annie must have started to recognize him
and feelings that proof that she was dead was starting to come up and this made her
extremely upset. How could she be dead and still be in the desolation she was in, in the
physical world if death is supposed to relive us from this or if we disappear when we die?
This question may have caused Annie to become frustrated and make her regret her decision
to commit suicide because the life she was living in the afterlife was the same hell she was
living in the physical world. These feelings ultimately would lead to Annie further punishing
herself and would have made it even more extremely difficult for her to be brought back to
heaven in the afterlife and so she asked Chris to leave to save herself from these feelings.
When Chris says to Annie “Good people end up in hell because they can’t forgive
themselves” it reminds me of what Chopra says in his book about Karma. “Punishment in the
afterlife is the result of unpaid Karmic debts. If I commit a crime and don’t pay for it here on
early I will pay by suffering later......Karma isn’t a prison it is a field of choice” …. In the
movie Annie is only in hell because she believes that is where she should be due to the
unpaid debt she feels she owes to her children for not driving them to school the day they
were killed. It is therefore her choice to be in hell because she cannot forgive herself. No one
but Annie puts herself in hell. Chris says he forgives Annie to help her realize that the only
person that has not forgiven her or doesn’t think the death of himself and his children is her
fault is her.
Finally Chris is able to rescue Annie from hell by showing her that he loves her so
much he is willing to stay in hell to be with her. This convinces her that it must really be
Chris and they go to the place on the lake together. They then decide to become reincarnated
and the last scene of the movie shows a little boy and a little girl on a pier playing with boats.
The idea of reincarnation is expressed in Chopra‘s book and he also says that reincarnation is
a choice and you can only be reincarnated if you make the decision to just as Annie and Chris
made the choice at the end of the movie to become reincarnated.
In conclusion there were many similarities between the ideas in the movie “What
Dreams May Come” and in Deepak Chopra’s book “The Burden of Proof.” Both suggest and
support similar ideas such as reincarnation, projections and the afterlife of suicide victims,
choosing your own heaven, and that we are our souls not our physical bodies. The afterlife in
both the films and Chopra’s book are very similar and have helped me to shape my idea of
what the afterlife is through reflecting on them. There is uncertainty for many people about
the afterlife however one thing is certain, even if there is definitive proof of the afterlife and
what it is like people will still disagree with it because just as we create our own heaven and
our own hell in the afterlife we also create our own life in the physical world through our
ideas and beliefs.
Section II Question A
In the epilogue of “Life After Death: The Burden of Proof” by Deepak Chopra
entitled “Maha Samadhi” the final story of Ramana describes many of the ideas that Chopra
expresses throughout the rest of the book and is a perfect way to end the book.
When Ramana dies he goes through some of the same processes of crossing over as
“the seven-fold awakening” proposed by Chopra predicts. Ramana physical body stopped
working as he was no longer able to hear the thunder. He began to feel lighter like his body
was free from limitations. The physical world then vanished as the world disappeared,
however Ramana could still see out the window at the sky which then turned white which
may have been a shift from the physical to the nonphysical world. Ramana did not feel a
universe, or a god or divine presence, perhaps this was because he had no expectations for the
afterlife. The reason most people who have near death experiences (NDEs) sense a divine
presence is because that is what they have been conditioned to believe, not everyone believes
in God but almost all of us believe that there is a divine being in the afterlife that is loving
and caring and this is what the afterlife will feel like. Chopra expresses this sentiment in his
book when he provides examples of NDEs, Christians see God, Buddhists see Buddha and
even those that are scientific minded or atheists feel a divine presence in what they describe
as the afterlife. Finally the sense of “I” that remains in the afterlife for Ramana causes him to
decide to reincarnate and moving on to another phase of existence.
At the beginning of the epilogue it seems like Ramana is in a dream like state, he is drowsy
and sees things that were not the same as they were in the physical world. This shows how
similar dreams are to death and the same idea is expressed in the rest of Chopra’s book.
Once Ramana realizes that death has come for him and that he is dying time becomes
timeless, he forgets how old he is and age begins to slip away. Chopra expresses a similar
idea throughout the book by saying that one of the biggest miracles of death is it makes time
disappear. Death is the only thing that can do this and so it is puzzling that it is not considered
a miracle.
One of my favorite quotes from the epilogue is “The body is like a cloak, for the
enlightened dying is like letting the cloak fall to the floor. For the unenlightened, it is like
ripping off a cloak that is sewn on.” (page 252 paragraph 2).Chopra expresses throughout his
book that the soul is our true selves and the people that have difficulty with this also have
difficulty when it is time to die. The people that believe that the physical world is reality are
confronted with a huge issue when they are faced with death, if my body disappears and I am
my body do I disappear too? When one is faced with these sorts of questions it may produce
extreme death anxiety. These people have difficulty understanding how the physical world
that they can touch, see and taste is not reality. I had difficulty understanding this as well
when I began taking this class and it caused me great confusion. The quote in Chopra’s book
that helped me to understand how this could be true was “Do not trust reflections, not if you
want to see reality.” Everyone in the world can only see themselves, things and others
through reflections, whether it be the reflection of yourself in a mirror, the reflection of
yourself as seen by another person or the reflection of how something tastes from your taste
buds. Everything that involves the five senses and that we perceive as reality can be changed
by changing our beliefs and values. For example if someone is forced to go on a gluten free
diet because they are diagnosed with Celiac’s disease it will be difficult at first because they
are so used to the taste of bread and it will be difficult for them to adjust to the taste of gluten
free food. However after a while they will find that they don’t like the taste of gluten
anymore if they happen to have some. What we use to create the physical world in our
minds, the 5 senses, changes over time this makes me wonder how can we accept something
to be reality if we haven’t truly seen or experienced it?
Ramana only is reincarnated because he chooses to be. This is another idea that
Chopra puts forth in his book. Throughout his book Chopra says that acceptance of the soul
as who you truly are in the afterlife is a major step in the process of crossing over. Once one
comes to this realization they are able to choose to become reincarnated however if this does
not happen they will not have this choice. When Ramana accepts that his soul is who he truly
is and what is allowing him to continue living in the afterlife he is able to be truly free and is
then able to choose to become reincarnated.
Ramana chooses to become reincarnated because he wants to teach others in the
physical world about the afterlife and death. Ramana recognizes that his soul does not belong
to him and that it belongs to the universe as Chopra says in his book and he recognizes that
since is soul is not his he must use what he has learned about it to help others for the greater
good. If we consider that every time a soul reincarnates into someone else this person then
becomes a partial owner of the soul as well, the soul never truly belongs to one person it
belongs to the many people that have possessed it in the physical world. Ramana recognizes
this and feels it is his duty to the rest of the people in the physical world whose souls are
possessed by others as well to teach them about the soul and how to enter into the afterlife.
Another one of my favorite quotes from the book and one that I think summarizes
Chopra’s book perfectly is the last quote of the epilogue “Ramana knew his purpose: to show
these dreaming humans, whom he loved so much, how to wake up.” Throughout his book
Chopra compares the afterlife to a dream and in this last quote he is comparing the physical
world to the dream, because the physical world is not reality. Ramana goes back to earth and
becomes reincarnated to help those on earth come to this understanding so they are able to
live their lives in a way that feeds the soul rather than destroys it.
I had to read the epilogue over a few times before I was able to truly understand the
beauty of it but once I understood it I was glad I took the time to do so. It gave me another
perspective of thinking and opened my eyes to other ideas even changing some of my own
beliefs. I think the epilogue shows how everyone is equal because we all go through the same
process as we cross over. As Chopra says in his book “No matter how rich and gifted you are,
death is the great equalizer” once we as humans are able to realize this we will be much better
off. Chopra says as I have previously stated that we are not the owners of our soul. To me this
means that souls are recycled through reincarnation and every person that the soul has lived
in owns a part of it. Your own soul could have belonged to any race or any sex so when we
are prejudice towards other people we may also be prejudice towards ourselves.
As I grow older and have more life experiences I feel this book and the conclusion
will come to mind often. I have had few experiences with death and so have not thought of it
in any true depth before taking this class and reading this book. Death is one of the
experiences we all share and when I am affected by death the ideas that I have taken and
expanded on from this book as well as this class will be extremely useful. I was born and
raised catholic so many of my ideas about death before reading this book and taking this class
were based upon what I had learned at church and I never really got the chance to explore my
own ideas about death. I had previously thought that when I died I would go to heaven and
god would be there and I would just hang out with all my other relatives that had died and
play with all the pets I had owned. I had never really thought about what happens to other
things or the mechanics behind death and the afterlife and how my idea of heaven fit in with
the ideas of others.
In conclusion the epilogue to this book was a great reflection on what the author
wanted to portray. Many of his ideas were summarized in this short conclusion and allowed
me to further understand what his philosophy on death is. This epilogue helped me to shape
my ideas on death and the afterlife and will continue to expand my ideas and own philosophy
in the future. Perhaps Ramana is Chopra and his goal in writing this book was to help “these
dreaming humans, whom he loves so much, to how to wake up.”